


Yellow Flowers

by officialbillhader



Category: Valentine's Day (2010)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff, Idiots in Love, M/M, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:00:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29484870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/officialbillhader/pseuds/officialbillhader
Summary: Holden hears Sean come out. And he knows. He knows why Sean did it, he knows who he did it for, and he knows he loves Sean and can't stay away from anymore.
Relationships: Sean Jackson/Holden Wilson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Yellow Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> Most of this was written in 2019 then promptly forgotten about until 2020 when I wrote some more and then the last few paragraphs were just written.

Holden holds the flowers in his hands, close to his chest. They are yellow. Sean's favorite color. He remembers when he first learned of it, and he remembers how he laughed. Yellow is an unflattering color, he said. Yellow fits nowhere. 

Sean told him he was wrong, and he bought Holden a ring with a yellow gemstone placed delicately in the middle. A beryl, Holden thinks.

“Yellow fits there,” Sean said, as sappy as ever, and Holden had no choice but to kiss him, despite the atrocious yellow gemstone on his finger. 

Now he has these flowers. He has these flowers to taunt him after ending it with Sean, to taunt him with the prospect of Sean not wanting him anymore. But he still bought them. He still walked into the flower shop with the french name and talked to the tall guy wearing all pink, sweeping flower petals into a neat pile, only one other employee left despite the store looking a mess.

He asked for yellow flowers and yellow flowers only. He did not want a bouquet, he did not want flowers with assorted meanings. He wanted one meaning and one meaning only: yellow. 

When he gets back in the taxi, the radio is still turned to the sports news channel. The hosts are talking about something different from what made Holden go to a flower shop, from what echoes in Holden's head over and over and over. 

“Because of who I am… I haven't lived the life I wanted… I'm gay.”

“I'm gay and I'm gonna play.” 

Announced publicly in a press meet. Not hidden in shadows and accidentally found out. No, Sean had explicitly stated who he was. He had also mentioned the family he wanted, the one Holden was scared to ever start while Sean kept playing football, was scared to start if Sean could not tell the public about who he would start his family with. 

Holden understands there were issues with Sean letting himself be known. A famous, hugely successful football player must not be gay. Every moment he risked letting it be known he was gay was a moment he risked losing his career. Unfortunately, to Holden, moments only last so long, and as they ticked away, Holden became scared the public would never know. He imagined raising a family with the man he loved while hidden in the shadows, tucked into corners of restaurants and pushed into darkness on sidewalks. 

Perhaps the worst situation he could imagine--the one that made his blood boil until it overflowed into tears, the one he couldn't help but imagine every waking moment and dream every sleeping moment--was his future family being raised by an actress. Not literally, of course, but a woman who pretended to be Sean's wife, who claimed to have adopted his and Sean's children. A woman who would blatantly lie and cover up an obvious truth in order to protect Sean's career. 

So he left Sean. He asked for a break to sort through his emotions and he left the country the next day for a business trip. He stayed out of the country for almost a month. He ignored Sean's phone calls and text messages for the two weeks they lasted before Sean gave up. 

“I don't want to ever feel like I do not belong in my own family, Sean. Can you guarantee that?” Holden had demanded of Sean the night before his business trip. The fight had escalated from nothing, or from passive aggressive touches and words said that meant nothing until suddenly they meant everything and there was no stopping them.

Sean stared at Holden with wide eyes, his hands balled into fists and his brain not quite processing what Holden was saying. It’s late and he feels foggy. Had they been drinking? 

“Explain,” Sean prompted. 

“The fact that I have to explain to you shows that you can’t. That’s all I need to know.” He got out of the bed they share, the one with high thread count silk sheets, the one that was more than big enough to hold them both. He put on the various clothes he was missing, and he left.

Maybe Holden was wrong and he hadn’t asked for a break, he had just expected one. But no matter, he left. And now he is coming back. 

The flight home was on Valentine’s Day to no particular involvement on his part. Luckily, the women he sat next to had no interest in talking much about Valentine's Day. Or even why he didn't want to talk about Valentine's day, or even think about it. Or why he so clearly ignored the stewardesses obvious flirts.

He gave up his car to her because she was nice, and it was so obvious she loved the man she came home to see. And she helped realize who he loves and what he wanted to do to keep the man he loves. But he was still on the fence. 

His driver plays nothing. He keeps the radio off because he knows Holden enjoys silent drives in order to focus on the sights. Everything in Los Angeles always feels different no matter how many times he sees the same thing. When it rains, he likes to hear how it hits the windows and the roof. Sometimes he has fallen asleep and woken up to an oldies channel playing softly on the radio and a soft smile appears on his face. It reminds him of his childhood and driving around in his dad’s car refurbished from the 20’s. He always pretends to stay asleep so his driver won't turn off the radio. 

The driver of the taxi he resides in does not care about Holden's preferences. But he supposes that's okay because if the driver hadn’t had the radio on he never would have heard Sean tell the entire football and world beyond of his sexuality. He never would have gotten off the fence and made the taxi driver go to the nearest flower shop. 

The employee dressed in all pink was more than happy to sell him yellow flowers to fix his relationship. He wished him luck Holden was happy to receive. The taxi driver also wishes him luck with a foreign accent, but Holden is happy for it nonetheless. 

He has a key to Sean's place. He expected to get rid of it before he ever used it again, but then again, he did not expect to end up at Sean’s place again. The taxi driver seemed surprised when Holden got out of the car and put in the code to Sean's prestigious Malibu neighborhood, opening the old, but well-functioning gate. The taxi driver seemed even more surprised when he gave him directions to Sean's home literally on the beach shore. Sean doesn't know whether the taxi driver knew the house belonged to an NFL player, or rather he suspected he was in a neighborhood with a couple of celebrities. Maybe he had never been in a neighborhood with such immense wealth. 

The taxi driver drops him off with words of luck. And now Holden holds Sean’s house key in his fingers, the flowers in the other hand. The moment he enters Sean's home there is no going back, but there is a going back now. He can walk out of the neighborhood, then call another taxi to his location. 

Or he can enter the house. He's not sure which decision is better. 

He's not one to quit. He is one to leave or give up when the time is right, but not when the time is so awfully wrong. So he puts the key into the lock and he turns it, and he opens the door slowly, expecting to see no lights on, and his expectations are met. He closes the door quietly and relocks it behind him. The alarm is not on. Sean has the tendency to forget to turn it on almost every night. 

“I pay to be in one of the safest neighborhoods in Malibu, why should I worry about turning on an alarm?”

Holden had put it into his own nightly routine to turn it on. It has probably only been turned on once since Holden left. 

Holden thinks he'll find Sean in his bed judging by the time, but he is wrong to think so. He spots Sean as a silhouette in a chair in his lowered family room. Only a small portion of his head is visible as a black blob, Holden can tell he is sunken down in the chair, most likely asleep. 

Holden doesn't look at Sean more than to make sure he is asleep when he traces the flowers across Sean's forehead down to his cheek. Sean stirs awake with an incoherent mumble and though he is half-asleep, he is surprised to see Holden staring at him with a soft expression. 

Holden holds out the flowers and puts his hand in Sean's hair and starts to massage his scalp. He is kneeling to be on Sean's level.

“You saw,” Sean says. He locks their eyes for a quick second before he looks at the flowers being offered to him.

“Yeah,” Holden responds.

“Yellow,” Sean says and takes the flowers.

“Your favorite color.” 

“Yeah.” 

Sean twiddles the flowers in his hands for a bit, staring at them. “How did you see it?” 

“I heard it on ESPN.” 

“I did it for you.” 

“What made you think I'd ever hear it?” 

“Hope.” 

Holden leans into Sean's neck and he takes a deep breath with an open mouth. He missed the smell of Sean more than he would ever be willing to admit. He kisses Sean's neck, delicately. 

“You've always been hopeful,” Holden mumbles, unwilling to leave his current position. 

Sean gently coaxes him out so they can look at each other. 

“I'm sorry,” Sean says. He presses a few fingers to Holden's lips and keeps them there, his eyes now focused on them. 

“I know. I am too,” Holden says.

“I know,” Sean repeats. They sit in silence for a few moments, Sean's fingers still on Holden's lips. He can feel the warmth of his breath, telling him he's alive, that he's there. 

“Please kiss me,” Holden whispers. He is already there to lock eyes with Sean when Sean tears his eyesight from his fingers. 

“Okay.” 

So Sean kisses him. His manicured stubble slides across Holden's smooth face and Holden hadn't realized until this moment how much he missed this. The taste of Sean's lips, always moisturized, always just a hint of cherry. The way Sean just always put a little more passion into the kiss than Holden does, but it doesn't mean Holden doesn't care. It doesn't mean that at all.

He doesn't know how long it is until the kiss ends because neither are willing to be the first to pull back, but once it does end, their eyes lock on each other. Sean gives a soft, lopsided smile. 

"Don't leave me again," he says. "I want to make sure you don't."

"I won't," Holden responds.

"Good." He kisses Holden again, short and sweet and full of love and then he says "good" again, mumbled under his breath, there to reassure himself that it's okay now. It's okay. 

It's going to be okay from now on.


End file.
